Originally from Reflections on International Arbitration - Essays in Honour of Professor George Bermann

Preview Page

Writing a legal piece on George is an even greater challenge than it would be to write on anybody else. George presents a wide range of interests in law and outside law. Choosing one topic over another results in shrinking the vast knowledge of the scholar and does not do justice to his infinite curiosity.

Faced with this dilemma, I decided to avoid the obstacle. Not like the horse that just stops and ejects the cavalière, but in the manner Confucius taught us to conduct our life: the best problem you can solve is the one you do not create for yourself. 

With the kind approval of the editors and in the hope that the dedicatee will be tolerant enough to accept this departure from tradition, here is George’s imaginary answer to a questionnaire, which, for any French person, is known as the “Proust questionnaire”. In reality, Proust discovered this game under circumstances that are not entirely clear. For sure, the questionnaire originally comes from England, is considered there as a game and is called “Confessions”. Proust adapted it, changed some questions, avoided others, added more to the original. I decided to do the same. Hence the Proust questionnaire and its English predecessor only served as an inspiration to the questions below.